


All the Sanity in Me

by AngeliqueNothing



Series: Bang! [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn (Comics), Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cheating, Consenting Adults, Emotional Roller Coaster, Explicit Language, F/M, Harleen Quinzel - Freeform, Harley Quinn - Freeform, Jarley - Freeform, Jarley Freeform, Joker (DCU) Played by Jared Leto, Miscarriage, NSFW, Non-violent Joker, POV Alternating, POV Harley Quinn, POV Joker (DCU, Pregnancy, Swearing, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:54:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29784711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeliqueNothing/pseuds/AngeliqueNothing
Summary: What happens when Joker and Harley go to therapy? What happens when the poor therapist isn't even LICENCED for that kind of work, but is roped into it? What secrets will be revealed and where do we go from here?This is a continuation of the Bang! series, and while it IS helpful to read the first four smut-filled stories, it's not necessarily needed...though it IS strongly requested! If you're reading in order, this comes after "Space Doesn't Always Work" (in Bang! Shorts) where our lovely Jarely were fighting.
Relationships: Jarley Relationship, Joker (DCU) & Harleen Quinzel, Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Bang! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080917
Comments: 13
Kudos: 17





	1. Doctor Knows Best

**Author's Note:**

> Buckle up and gird your loins ladies, gentlemen, and binaries! This shit's gonna get rough before it becomes happy again. Remember to subscribe if you want the next installments!

“Harley, you do understand I’m not a therapist in any form, right?” Stacy said nervously.

Harley looks at her with a gentle smile before telling her, “Of course I do, Stace. But it says ‘doctor’ on your spiffy certificates, and that’s the only thing he’s going to notice!”

Stacy shakes her head ruefully, knowing that she’s going to help. Of course she will. Hell, she was likely the only one that _could_ help her two favorite psychopathic clowns through their issues and come out the other side alive! And even if she wasn’t successful in helping them, she had a good feeling she’d still come out of it alive, so there _was_ that! Sighing, she gives Harley a small smile and tells her to bring herself and her paramour by the house in a few days. Harley tries to convince her that it would be better to do it at the hideout, but Stacy knows that the best thing for both of them is a neutral space where they can separate from the problems that they’re going through, whatever they happen to be.

Nodding, Harley takes her leave through the back door, and Stacy is thankful for the discretion. She did _not_ need her children to see what exactly mommy and daddy got up to in their free time, and with whom. They knew their father was in “acquisitions,” while Stacy worked days at Gotham General. In reality, she also worked nights tending to battle wounds, should she be needed, but her kids did _not_ need to know that.

\---

At the appointed time, Stacy makes sure that the kids are up in their rooms playing before she lets Joker and Harley in through the garage doors, followed closely behind by her big bear of a husband. Really, he did look handsome today in his three-piece suit and blue and black paisley tie. She knew it wasn’t his favorite, but she’d gotten the tie for him for his birthday a few years ago, and it made her smile every time he wore it. Maybe she’d get him another tie for _her_ birthday? Smiling, she ushers her two “patients” into her study and closes the doors in Johnny’s face, much to his chagrin, as she motions to the couch she’s set up for this specific purpose.

“So, why don’t you guys tell me why you’re here today,” she starts with as soon as she’s seated in the chair across from the couch.

Joker looks between Stacy and Harley, finally settling his glare on Harley as he says, “I thought we were here to see the new wing Johnny was building?”

“Harley! _Please_ tell me you told him why you’re here today! There _is_ no new wing!”

“Weeelll, I didn’t think he’d _come_ if I told him why!” Harley almost whines, looking at Joker even as she addresses Stacy.

“ _Harley_!!” Stacy tries not to shout, she really does, but damn it! And it’s almost harder _not_ to shout when Harley doesn’t look nearly as sorry as she should. Putting her hand over her face for a moment, she tries to scrub away the frustration and bring back her calm ‘doctor’s face’ before she faces the two clowns. “You’re here…because Harley wanted to talk about her feelings and thought having an intermediary would be a good idea.”

Joker raises his non-existent eyebrows and turns to look at Harley for confirmation. Unfortunately for him, he only receives a tiny shrug of the woman’s shoulders as she ducks her head down, curling onto her side of the couch.

“Mom!” Billy comes bursting through the study doors as if the Devil himself is hot on his heels, not paying attention to the closed door he had to burst through. “Mom, Haley stole my tank and took it apart again!”

“Did you _not_ see the closed door that indicated that I was doing something that was _not_ for prying eyes?” Stacy asks her wayward child with a raised brow. He looks only mildly contrite until he sees the couple on the couch, his eyes going wide as saucers. 

“Mom?” Billy whispers, staring at Harley and Joker in all of their crazy-looking glory.

The small boy looks on the verge of running when, pulling a knife from his pocket, Joker offers it to the boy with an open hand, grinning wickedly. “Here, kid, use this. Better to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget.”

“J, put it away,” Stacy growls, looking more menacing than anyone in the house has ever seen her look, and with an apologetic smile, Joker slowly slides the blade back into his pocket, shrugging at the kid.

“They’re role-playing, my love. Mommy is just trying to help them through a few things. Go tell your father that I said you could have a new tank. He’s in the kitchen.”

She can hear Joker snicker and whisper something in Harley’s ear about role-playing later, but is thankful she can’t hear exactly what he says. She does _not_ need that visual, thank you very much. Sadly for him, it doesn’t look like Harley is paying attention but is instead staring at Billy’s retreating form.

“Since you’ve brought everyone here today, why don’t you start us off, Harley?” Stacy asks as soon as Billy has closed the door behind him, trying for soothing. Turning her face in the general direction of Joker but still looking down at her hands, which seem to be twisting and turning in her lap, Harley bites her lip, clearly trying to think how to phrase what she wants to say.

“I…we…” pausing, Harley chews on her lip for a moment, trying to put a sentence together. “Iforgottogetmyshotrenewedandnowwe’repregnant,” she gets out in one long breath, rushing the sentence as fast as she can. Stacy looks aghast, while Joker looks confused, clearly not having followed the sentence.

“Please tell me you’re joking, Harley,” Stacy whispers, looking on in horror at the bomb that’s about to go off in her face. Quickly standing, she goes to the door, yells for Johnny, and when he comes rushing like a bat out of hell, she whispers to take the children to get ice cream and to stay gone for the rest of the day. She has no wish for her children to be here when Joker figures out what Harley has just said and has even less wish for them to witness the bloody and mutilated corpse of their mother, which she’s pretty sure is her future right about now. Shaking her head, Harley somehow ducks further into her side of the couch, bringing her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs.

“Doll, you know I don’t understand the words when you rush them like you’ve just taken coke,” Joker tells her, reaching a hand over and pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Harley whimpers at the gentle touch and leans incrementally away from him, and Stacy is unsurprised to see the anger flare up in Joker’s eyes. What she _is_ surprised to see is the tender worry that follows hot on the rage’s heels as Joker quickly removes his hand and sits back, giving Harley the space she so clearly needs. “I need you to repeat whatever you wanted to _tell_ me with a _witness_ present, but _slower_ ,” he says with raised hands, clearly trying for unthreatening.

Harley finally looks Joker in the eye and whispers, “We’re pregnant. We were so busy last month, and I forgot to get my shot renewed, and now we’re pregnant.”

“I understand your need to joke, Harley, I really do, but that is _not_ something that’s funny,” Joker all but growls as he stands and paces across the room, as far as he can get from the two women. “What the _fuck,_ Harley? What the actual ever-loving _fuck_! _FUCK!_ ” Punching the wall hard enough to dent it, Joker hollers once more before walking out of the room, slamming the doors viciously behind him.


	2. Where Do We Go?

He can’t breathe, fuck, he can’t breathe. It felt like his chest was going to explode, and the oxygen he keeps sucking down isn’t going to his brain. There was no way they could keep it, hell, how they’d made the parasite in the first place was beyond him! He’d honestly thought he was sterile after the chemical bath and doubly so after the second immersion with Harley. He hadn’t even been aware that she was still on the shot, hadn’t honestly thought about it once since their dip in the caustic chemicals. That had clearly been an oversight, an oversight he would somehow rectify.

He still couldn’t breathe, and his fingers felt tingly. She’d finally driven him to his death. That’s what this was. He’d die of a heart attack, from the lack of oxygen to his brain, from _whatever_ was happening!

Somehow he’s down on his knees in the hallway, unsure of how he got there, and his chest is heaving, and she’s going to be the _death_ of him! And the only one that would likely find it funny would be Batman!

But then he feels a hand on his back, rubbing up and down, and somehow his breathing starts to regulate. He doesn’t want to be _near_ her right now; _why_ was she touching him? And _why_ was his body responding favorably to the touch when he just wanted to push her away? But then he thinks of the bloodsucker growing in her, and he wants to take a knife to her belly. If she was stupid enough to get this close, maybe he could take care of this right here, right now. But suddenly, her head is resting on his back as her hand continues its up and down motion, and he can feel the tears soaking through his shirt.

Fuck, he’d been the cause of those tears. He’d promised himself once upon a time that he’d never be the cause of her tears, and while Joker knew that the promise had been broken a few times, it hadn’t been broken since he’d said those three stupid words, and _these_ tears, _these_ were different. These were silent tears. And silent tears had never happened because of him. Silent tears were her body needing to let the emotion out, but her conscious mind refusing to make a sound, lest it be taken poorly.

He just sits there, not knowing what to do, how to make this work. To give Harley what she wants would ruin everything. She may not think he knew that she wanted kids and marriage and a happy home life, but he’d known since the beginning. And he’d known for just as long that it would never work, that that life could never happen. He’d never be the sort of man that went to work nine to five to come home to a wife and children, and he knew she'd never really be happy with that either. She was just as crazy as he was, if not crazier. They could never bring something innocent into this world of theirs. Maybe he could get her puppies instead? That they could train to attack and eat people on command?

If she was bound and determined to keep the thing inside of her, it was likely too late for puppies. Fuck, it was probably too late for puppies.

“I’m sorry, Pud,’ I really am,” she whispers behind him so quietly he almost doesn’t hear, her silent tears still soaking through his shirt. “It won’t change anything. It won't. You’ll still be you, and I’ll still be me, and we’ll still be King and Queen of Gotham. Promise promise.” He can feel her nodding into his back, trying to convince them both. But it’s not working, and he shakes his head. He’s fairly certain nothing will ever be the same again.

He still can’t look at her. This vicious creature that has wormed her way into his very soul, that he has no idea how to live life without, had _done this_. No, says the voice he rarely hears anymore; no, they’d done this _together_. It took two to tango, after all. Really, it’s not like her body could sustain the life, could it? Her genetic makeup had been _changed_ when they went swimming in the acid. There was no way this child would come to term. Better to get rid of it now. But again, the voice pipes up: it takes two to tango, and it takes two to make this decision, and it was ultimately her body. Just like the tattoo on her shoulder blade proclaimed to the world that she was Joker’s, it also declared that she belonged to no one and was her own creature.

Suddenly the hand on his back is gone, and she’s gone when he turns to look, and he has no idea how he lost time. Was there something about the hallway that was making him lose time? Or was it his brain being incapable of functioning? Likely the former...of _course_ his brain was perfectly capable of functioning!

She’s disappeared when he finally returns to the study, and he glares at Stacy, needing to take his anger out on _someone_. Before he can move much further than the doorway, he feels the air shift and the temperature change that indicates his Harley is near, and suddenly her small hands are wrapping slowly around his waist from the back. He can feel her rest her head on his back, and it’s like a balm to his soul. Joker can hear the lines from that damn Johnny Nash song clearly in his head, “I can see clearly now the rain is gone,” and he wants to growl. Or purr. He’s not sure.

“I...I’m gonna go and stay with Ivy for a little bit, Pud’,” she whispers behind him, and he can feel his entire body tense up as she utters this disaster of a sentence.

Growling, he turns to face her, capturing her face in his hands as he crashes his mouth against hers. Joker’s fingers are tangling in her hair, and he’s pulling her flush against him, still growling. When they’re both breathless, he runs his nose up her heart vein and whispers, “You’re mine, Harley Quinn. I will never let you go. You’ll die before you leave me.” He can feel her body shuddering, and her hands are reaching into his hair as she whimpers.

“Always, Mistah J, I’ll always be yours. But you gotta take me as I am, all of me, or I need to go away until this is finished.”

Pushing her blindly through the entryway, he closes the door on Stacy’s nosiness as he slams Harley against the closest wall and growls out, “Mine,” before reattaching his mouth to hers. His hands are sliding down her body, his fingers going for the button of her jeans when he feels her pushing him forcefully back.

She rests her hands flat on his chest before leaning her forehead against those hands. “No, Pud’,” she whispers. “You can’t solve this with sex this time. It got us _into_ this mess. I need real conversation, real decisions. No plowing through them, no ignoring them.” Reaching up, she runs her hands gently through his hair, pushing it away from his face, and it feels like something is breaking inside of him. “It’s like Los Angeles. All or nothing. It’s after the final buzzer, and you need to make your decision now, with little thought, just gut reaction,” she finishes in a whisper.

She looks up at him and smiles sadly, as if she can _feel_ his brain’s inability to work in this, his most crucial, moment. He can feel it, he’s losing her, and if he loses her this time, there may be no coming back. He’s incapable of functioning without her, but how does he say that? How does he put into words what he needs from her without breaking himself in the process?

Suddenly snarling, he backs away, his hands in the air next to his shoulders, his palms facing her. He feels cornered, like she’s already made the decision for the both of them, just like she’d made the choice to clearly keep the parasitic creature growing inside of her. He can feel the change in the air as he backs away, like ice is forming, like something is about to snap, and he’s ready to snap back at it. He may love her with every fiber of his being, but he refused to accept this... _thing_ ….inside of Harley. This thing that would take her away from him, would steal everything that was _his_. This inability to think is _her_ fault. He prided himself on his mental faculties, or what was left of them, and she was ruining _everything_.

Joker feels the knife being twisted between his fingers before he realizes what he’s done but doesn’t put it away when he sees her eyes go down to that hand. Harley’s eyes go round as saucers for a moment as she clearly contemplates what the knife might mean before there’s that perfect crinkle between her brows and her eyes narrow at him. Hell, _he_ has no idea what the naked blade being out means other than that it was an unconscious physical reaction, but his blood sings at the feel of the knife in his hand and the manic look in her eyes. Joker slowly stalks back towards her, the blade continuing to twist this way and that in his fingers until he’s got her up against the wall, a hand pressed almost tenderly to her throat, the knife somehow ending up against the underside of her jaw. He feels like his body is running along before his brain can catch up, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe his body can do what his brain cannot. His fearless Harlequin raises her chin and stares at him quietly, letting him decide what he wants with no input from her either way. Other than that mad glint in her eyes, her face is devoid of all emotion as she stares at him.

She gives him another moment before throwing her head back and cackling, that manic glint in her eyes growing until it seems to eclipse everything. “Do it,” she tells him between her laughter, putting her hands on his as if to encourage him. He should take it. He should. She was giving him the perfect opportunity to get rid of whatever was inside of her. One simple slice, that’s all it would take. One simple slice, and this will be over. This grand joke of his will have finally reached its punchline.

He can’t take it, though. And he knows that’s why she’s laughing. He’s just as incapable of killing her now as he was on that strip of road once upon a time. Snarling so close to her face that he can see spittle hit her cheek, he tightens his hand on her neck briefly before stepping away and throwing the useless knife down at her feet. She never stops laughing, going so far as to double over and put her hands on her sides as he punches the wall next to her head and walks away.


	3. Blood in the Cut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this chapter has cheating, which can be a hard trigger for many. I've placed a bold underlined section where you should skip if you still want to stick with it but want to skip the cheating bit, and again a bold underlined section where you can pick back up again.

Harley can’t seem to stop laughing. She laughs and laughs and laughs and sees no end in sight until suddenly she’s crying. Thankfully Joker has left by then, and he doesn’t have to see the wracking sobs that send her to her knees, clutching her stomach, trying to hold everything together. But she’s _lost_ everything, and _nothing_ is as it should be. Stacy comes out at some point and murmurs soothing words, clearly trying to help, but Harley’s not sure how anything will ever be okay again. Without Joker, there was _nothing_ . There was no _point_ . The joke wasn’t _funny_ anymore.

She’d known he’d be unhappy with the news. Hell, that’s why she’d roped Stacy into helping. Even if the poor woman had been unaware as to _what_ she was helping Harley _with_. She hadn't thought Joker would be so angry he'd leave, though. She should have known better, she really should have. He'd left her in Los Angeles, and that had been over words he _already_ _felt_ , words he just couldn't put together to form a sentence. This? This was foreign territory to her sociopathic clown. Having been his therapist not _so_ very long ago, she understood that emotions were unfamiliar to him since his dip in the chemicals. Add to that the ECT treatments at Arkham that had fried the synapsis in his brain that let him access his past memories. But she’d thought he _loved_ her enough...no, she’d _hoped_ that he loved her enough to love something that came from the both of them. This thing, this creature, this _fetus_ , was part of him as well, after all.

That thought sets off a fresh round of noisy tears, and it’s not until she’s being picked up in Johnny’s huge arms that reality settles back in. She hiccups as she looks up at the big bear, and he looks down sadly. “Stace told me the gist of what happened. We’ll go and get you some things from the penthouse and then take you to Miss Isley, shall we, Miss Quinn?” he asks her gently. She nods against his chest, letting him carry her to the car.

“Where did he go, Johnny?” she whispers once she’s settled in the backseat of his little sedan. Her legs curl up under her chin as she leans her body against the door for support. 

“Last I checked the GPS, he was headed towards Midway City. He should be gone through the evening if past experience holds,” he tells her, never looking away from the road. He keeps his own counsel, and Harley is thankful for that. She’s not sure that she could deal with Johnny rejecting her too. Yes, he was Joker’s man and _had_ wanted to kill her more than once in the beginning, but he was the one constant in their insane life. He was one of the few henchmen that had lasted and thrived, even through her relatively short tenure, and was the only one that Joker trusted enough to allow up to the penthouse. She knew he would side with Joker ultimately, but she was thankful that he hadn’t made that choice yet.

“I...don’t think he’s in Midway City, Johnny,” Harley whispers as they enter the underground garage and see an old beat-up clunker parked in an empty spot. “Could you just drop me off at Ivy’s instead?” she asks, biting her lip, even though she knows it’s too late. There were multiple cameras throughout the garage, and a bell chimed in the security office when a car came through, and if he was home, he usually had the cameras pulled up on the computer in his office.

“Head held high, Miss Quinn,” Johnny whispers without moving his lips.

As soon as she opens the penthouse doors, she’s assaulted with the noise and scents of sex, and she’s tempted to just walk back out. She had her own bank accounts, she could just buy all new shit. But then she silently growls, and one of the voices argues that this was _her_ home too, and she was _allowed_ to go and get her things. Walking slowly through the living room, she tries to ignore the cocaine dusted across the top of the beautiful grand piano and the pieces of clothing strewn across the floor, including the boxers she’d picked out for J this morning. She can see the trail of clothing dwindle the closer she gets to their bedroom, and she internally cringes. He was fucking someone in _their_ bed! _Their bed_!!

**\--skip here if cheating is a trigger**

Walking through the doors to the bedroom, she just stands there for a moment, taking in the scene in front of her. The trollop that was bouncing up and down on his cock, riding _her_ Joker like a cowgirl in the reverse position, was in _her_ red nightdress and in _her_ thigh-high fishnet stockings. The other trollop is running her fingernails up and down his chest, sucking at his mouth like he’s breathing for her, and was in _her_ purple nightgown, and in _her_ seamed stockings, and was even in a pair of _her_ heels! Harley sees red for a moment, though she works to keep her face emotionless as she continues staring at the scene playing out before her eyes.

“Can’t you see we’re _busy_ ?!” the whore whines out when she finally notices Harley in the doorway, and Harley has to grit her teeth to stop from saying anything. There was no point, was there? He was _already_ trying to replace her. She knew from past experience (and past conversations with Stacy about the times she’d been gone) that Joker would never be capable of replacing her. No one would ever measure up to “The One, The Only, The Infamous Harley Quinn,” but she also knew he’d try his damndest. And it looked like he’d started early this time.

Raising up on his forearms, pushing the whore in purple away from him, Joker holds his hand out to Harley, silently asking her to join him with a crooked coked-up smile on his face. She smiles coyly at him as she slowly walks up to the poor useless bitch now sulking as she looks between Harley and Joker and gently runs her hands up the girl's front. Turning the woman to face Joker, she pulls her hair to the side of her neck and nibbles along the whore’s neck, looking at J the whole time. His eyes cloud with lust as he watches her with the other woman, and it makes the red in Harley’s vision intensify. Quicker than anyone notices, even J in his drug-addled state, Harley slices a blade across the dirty cunt’s throat from ear to ear, letting the girl’s body spray blood across the other whore and J as she still kisses the dying girl’s shoulder, staring at Joker. She smiles her most vicious smile as she lets the trollop slip to the side, her dead eyes staring at Joker as he stares at Harley. 

As she walks away, Harley can hear the other girl whimper and sniffle, Joker growling out, “keep moving,” as she goes to their closet. The wet sounds of flesh hitting flesh follow her, as do the little sucking sounds of the whore’s cunt pulling Joker in and the girl’s moans, but she tries to ignore them. 

It was just...it was just too much. She’d had _expectations_ for how today would go, and Joker laying in their bed letting some random blonde bimbo fuck him was almost more than she could deal with. Crouching down, Harley covers her ears and rocks back and forth a few times, trying to dislodge the noises in the other room that seemed to try to worm their way into her head. She feels fresh tears spring from her eyes, but she hides her face in her knees, trying to stifle any noises that might escape. 

Suddenly springing up, she pulls down her bags and begins throwing things into them, not paying attention to what she’s packing. As long as there were enough sweats and underwear, she’d ultimately be fine (and as she pretty much empties out the contents of those two drawers, she’s sure she’ll be fine). Before she can think what it might mean, Harley grabs a couple of Joker’s shirts down, putting the empty hangers on her side of the closet to disguise the loss, and folds them tenderly into her bag along with a few other personal items of his. As an afterthought, she grabs the stuffed toy hyena Joker had got her for Valentine’s day three months ago, putting it gently into the bag on top of J’s shirts before she leaves the room. 

As she walks back into their bedroom, she can see Joker has the girl in red laying on top of him, her breasts up in the air, her back arched, one of his hands on her neck as the other plays with her clit, and he lifts his hips into her in a vicious rhythm. The woman is moaning with each movement, clearly not paying attention to her dead friend laying on the bed next to them, and Joker is grunting with each thrust. He turns his head to stare at Harley as she walks from the closet, and the cruel smile he turns on her as his hips shove into the other woman will haunt her nightmares for the foreseeable future. That smile told her that Guy had been right all that time ago, and she was just a warm body, a hole to fuck, and nothing more. The professions of love were simply a way to get her to stay longer, to convince her that everything was fine. She’d thought she’d gotten away from Guy and the abuse, but that vicious smile told her otherwise. She can feel her knees trying to buckle at that look, but she refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her crumble. He’d had his chance.

Slipping into the bathroom, Harley yanks a travel bag out of the linen closet and begins throwing cosmetics into it. She knows Ivy won’t let her keep most of it, but it would be better not to leave it with J, with the state he was in. Who _knew_ whose dirty little fingers would be playing with her things. Better to throw it herself than have to throw it when she got back... _if_ she came back. Sniffling, she wipes her stupid leaking eyes and continues throwing things into the bag, ignoring Joker’s shout as he climaxes or the thump that follows. 

**\--you can pick back up here**

She’s leaning over the tub, grabbing out her shampoo when she feels Joker’s fingertips slide under her shirt to run along her spine, his wet mouth descending on the back of her neck, his tongue flicking out to taste her skin. The hand around her shampoo bottle tightens, and she fights the moan that slips from her lips at the feel of him touching her, but they’d always done best when communicating through sex. She lets him run his fingers along her skin and stands up slowly, knowing the moment can’t last. She can feel his hard length pressed against her lower back as one of his hands pushes her hair to the side while the other slowly slides under her shirt and up her sternum, fondling her breasts through her bra. Finally slipping his dexterous fingers into the small cup of her bra, he pinches her nipple, twisting lightly. Her back arches at the sensation and she raises a hand behind her, slipping it into his hair as she finally lets the moan slip past her lips. The hand playing with her hair slides down her back, around her front, and into her pants, and she can feel J’s hips gently circling behind her as his fingers reach for that sensitive little bundle of nerves. Oh _gods_ , was it _her_ hips gyrating slowly against him? As his fingers touch her clit and delve between her folds, she stops caring whose hips were moving and just lets the sensations wash over her. She’s making little mewling noises, and she can feel his purrs rumbling against her back, and _oh god_. His fingers begin to move in and out of her in that way she loved, his thumb playing with her clit as his other hand continues to pinch and twist her nipple, and she turns her head, needing his mouth attached to hers. Almost as soon as his tongue is running against hers, she’s climaxing hard enough that the hand fisted in his hair is the only thing keeping her upright, and she’s crying out, needing more. He sucks the noises she makes down as if they’re his sustenance, and she keeps crying out, her hips bucking against those amazing fingers, letting the sensations he’s giving her wrap around her like a warm blanket.

“Harl,” he whispers with such longing against her lips that she wants to give in. Wants to stay so badly she feels a pain in her chest, knowing that she can’t. Turning in his arms to face him, she runs her hands through his vibrant green hair as she gently kisses him, letting her tongue slide against his languidly, trying to pour all of her love into him through that kiss. He presses his body as tightly as he can against hers, tangling his hands in her hair and moaning into her mouth in a way that she knows is hers alone. She wants to cry at what she knows she’s about to lose and can see no way of stopping it. It’s like a runaway train that’s just going too fast to stop without crashing into something at this point. 

She can feel the subtle difference when his purr becomes a growl, as if he can feel what’s about to happen. She runs her thumbs against his sharp cheekbones as she leans back, letting her hands run down his neck, pausing at his collarbones. She’d give him this last chance, a final choice to put her needs above his own.

Rubbing her fingertips against the “all-in” tattoo, she whispers, “Tell me you’re all in, Joker-mine.” Kissing the tattoo, she drags her teeth over it as she lets her fingers run down to the laughter on his pectoral muscles, following her hand with her lips as she begs, “Tell me this hasn’t all been some grand joke, my love.” As her fingers finally come to rest on the ‘k’ of his self-proclaiming tattoo, she raises on her tiptoes, her other hand playing with his strong jawline as she whispers against his lips, “Tell me that it will all be okay, and I’ll stay,” before she seels her lips against his.

“Harley,” he begs, and she can feel his body trembling.

“It’s not too late, Puddin, _please_ ,” she whimpers against his lips. But he stays silent, unable to voice the thoughts running through his head, until finally, his body goes taut as a bowstring as he makes his decision. She tries to hold on to him, her hands cradling his face, but he wrenches away, stepping back and running his hands through his hair as he cackles. 

" _Not_ too late? Not too _late_?!" He crows as he paces away. He really did look like a god in all of his nude glory: tattoos shining bright against his pallor, green hair almost electric in the bathroom lighting, cock still at half-mast as if ready for any opportunity, and his grey-blue eyes shining with a mad glint. She can feel the violence in the air, and she swears she almost feels the gravel under boots instead of tile under sneakers. She smells the exhaust of the semi-truck pulling up behind them and is being pulled back to that strip of road. That strip of road where her life changed so irrevocably. She'd jumped into a vat of unknown caustic bubbling substances the last time they'd been at this junction. 

She wouldn't do it this time though, she had something else, some _one_ else to live for. She wanted him more than her own life, but not more than the life of the creature growing inside of her. And she'd live for _it_ this time. She'd live for _them_. 

Walking up behind him, she smooths her hands down his bare back once, kissing a shoulder bade as she whispers, "my heart scares you and a gun _doesn't_ ," picks up her bags, and walks through the door, her heart breaking a little more with each step. 

She's fairly certain it finishes breaking when she hears the animal-like howl come from the bathroom, followed by the crashing of likely every cosmetic in there as she steps out the front doors of their penthouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It WILL get better for our two lovebirds, I do so promise! It's just gonna take some work to get them back to a happy healthy place!


	4. Interlude

Harley got halfway to Ivy's place before the damn clunker died on her. She'd been tempted to take Johnny up on his offer to take her “wherever she needed to go,” but she knew each of the vehicles had GPS, and she had no intention of making it _that_ easy for Joker when he decided he wanted her again. 

If she was realistic as she looked at herself, she knew she'd go back to him eventually. This time though, it would either be with a baby in her arms or with a broken, empty womb. Or if he crawled on broken glass before then. Yes, she was thinking broken glass with the occasional hot coal he'd have to pick up? A small smile spreads across her face as she thinks of Joker having to pick up burning coals in his hands for her. Maybe that would teach him a lesson about leaving her? Likely not, but it would still be fun to watch.

Sighing, she exits the vehicles and is just grabbing her bags when she feels the air pressure change, a heavy thunk landing almost directly behind her. She sighs heavily and takes a moment to breathe, _not_ needing this shit right now. Really, could today get _worse_?! No, she took that back. It could always get worse. Better not to put that out into the universe...it was only asking for trouble! She would _not_ be taken to Arkham tonight, especially with Doctor Strange running the bloody place. She knew he liked experiments, and she would be the _perfect_ candidate!

Turning around slowly, she puts her hands in the air, trying for non-threatening as she faces this new threat. “I didn’t _do_ nothin’!” she whines as she turns to face whichever birdbrain was out tonight.

“That _is_ a stolen car, isn’t it, Harley?” Nightwing asks, hands going to his hips, feet spread apart, ready for anything she might throw at him. She knows it will likely annoy him more, but she finishes grabbing her bags out of the broken-down vehicle before turning back to him, her hands now stuffed in the front pockets of her jeans.

“ _I_ didn’t steal it! I just stole it from the person who _did_!” she tells him, stomping her foot on the ground for emphasis. “It was the only car in the garage that didn’t have GPS, and I don’t really need Joker knowing where I’m going, ya know?”

Nightwing cocks his head to the side, looking like the Robin he once was, and just stares at her. She didn’t have _time_ for this! She wanted to cuddle in one of Ivy’s big armchairs and eat the disgusting vegan ice cream that Ivy always had on hand until the next century! She didn’t want to fight with the Bat family tonight, possibly sustaining a kick to her already questionable stomach.

“Make your mind up, Dick, I don’t have all damn evening!” she growls, still keeping her hands in her pockets.

“I’m not being a dick, Harley. I’ve literally said eight words thus far!”

“Mister Grayson, I do not have _time_ for this. I want to be somewhere comfy, and that is _not_ Arkham or trussed up in the back of one of your Batmobiles!” Harley stomps her foot again, trying to show her frustration.

“The fuck, Harley?” Nightwing all but shouts at her.

“You _know_ I know! We discussed this in Los Angeles when we were all there last year! But I saw you perform once upon a time, long before you became Robin. You use a lot of the same moves now as you did then, did you know? I feel like acrobatic training never really leaves us and always shows up when we least expect it,” she tells him, shrugging. She honestly knew the entire Bat family’s identities, but it was more fun to pretend she didn’t and provided a good deal of hilarity as Joker tried to figure it out. Men were absolutely oblivious! “You don’t say you saw me, and I won’t tell Batdaddy that I know who you are?” she tries.

“The fuck, Harley?” Nightwing repeats, clearly unhappy at her use of blackmail.

“Come _on_! I don’t want to _do_ this right now, Dick!” Harley whines. She was _tired_. She was _nauseous_. She just wanted to _lie down_! “Joker is back that-a-ways,” she tells him, pointing vaguely behind her, “he stole it, go gettim!”

Sighing, Nightwing scrubs his hands across his face and looks at her seriously. Harley puts her hands back in her pockets, hunches her shoulders, and leans against the dead clunker. She was _exhausted_ by this whole bloody day and just needed it to be over and done with. “Please?” she whispers. “I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to go to Arkham, I just want to go lay down for the next month and cry. Can I go do that now, _please_?”

“Yeah,” he tells her as he runs his hands through his unruly mop of dark hair. “Want me to drop you off anywhere?” 

“Nah, I already told the weeds where I was as soon as I got outta the car. Ivy should be here soon.”

“Do I...do we need to be worried about what Joker will do?” Nightwing asks before Harley can turn away again.

“I honestly don’t know this time,” she shrugs. “It’s...this is maybe our worst separation, and I dunno if we’re going to come back from it, so yeah, maybe. Maybe be extra careful, and keep your Robin indoors?” She honestly had no idea what Joker would do. He could simply try dulling it with drugs, alcohol, and women, or he could plan something so epic that the city of Gotham would finally bow before him. She shrugs again, honestly having no clue and not overly caring, as long as he left her be.

They hear the gravel crunch under the mostly silent electric car as it comes to a stop behind Nightwing, and both heads turn to watch the brilliant redhead step out of the car and put her arms on top of the open door. Pamela just stands there, staring at the two of them. Stepping up to Dick, Harley pats his arm and kisses him lightly on the cheek, whispering, “Be careful, and tell the weeds if you need me,” before she gets into the passenger seat and Ivy takes off.

xxxxxx

Dick Grayson was _not_ looking forward to dealing with a homicidal sociopathic clown _sans_ Harley. And what the fuck had that been about talking to the weeds? Was he seriously supposed to just bend down and talk to the weeds if he wanted Poison Ivy, and thus Harley Quinn, to hear him? How did that work? And if it was _any_ weed, did that mean she had eyes and ears on them wherever they went, as long as there were plants? He’d need to make sure to grab a bottle of pesticide on the way back to the Batcave, just in case there was any form of plant life in _there_! Hadn’t Barbara _just_ brought them that little cactus, claiming it reminded her of Bruce?

As he swings back towards the hideout, he ruminates on the Harley and Joker situation. Their fights usually led one of two ways for the city of Gotham - complete absence of any Joker activity or some of his most creative heists. Dick was _really_ praying for the former. He was _not_ looking forward to telling Bruce about this latest breakup. Especially with as dejected as Harley looked. He wanted to punch Joker in his idiotic face for whatever he’d done to put that look on Harley’s face. She’d looked even worse than when he’d seen her in LA the previous year, and he’d thought she looked bad _then._

Please let it be a quiet Joker, Nightwing begs the universe as he finally gets back to his motorcycle. Please, please, _please_.


	5. What Are Friends For?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanna help me with the title of this chapter? I'm kinda meh on it, and would LOVE some help! Whatever jumps out at you, throw it at me! Or if you love it, let me know!

"There's a part of me that really wants to see him talk to the weeds. I know that's not what we _really_ want because you _need_ to stay away from Joker, but fuck, I'd love to see Nightwing bend down and talk to the weeds!" Ivy guffaws. "Can you imagine Batman's look of confusion as Nightwing begs the weeds to send in Harley Quinn?!"

Harley giggles in the passenger seat, and Ivy is happy that she can get the other girl to laugh a little. She was used to Harley coming to her looking tired and sad after one of her and Joker's breakups, but this was a different level of dispirited. This was the death of a beloved pet kind of dejected. She knows she shouldn't be happy, she really does, but internally she's squealing. Maybe _this_ time, it would last. Maybe _this_ time, Harley would be able to separate herself from that useless man.

Just as quickly as the giggles come, though, they disappear. It looked like Harley was having an internal debate with herself over her right to laugh in the face of whatever was happening.

"So, you want to tell me what sent you away from that useless git of a man this time?" Ivy asks as she tries to watch the road. She doesn't want Harley to feel like a spore under a microscope, but she's worried.

"Can we talk about it tomorrow?" Harley begs, clearly not wanting to deal with her own emotions over whatever was happening. She leans her head against the window, pretending to watch the warehouse district move by, and Ivy can't take it anymore. She can see Harley tense as she pulls the car over, clearly gearing up for a fight Ivy has no interest in.

"Darling, I think you need to tell me before we get home. I need to prepare the plants if I'm going to have an incensed Joker on my hands," Ivy tells her as she pushes a bit of Harley's gorgeous platinum blonde hair from her face.

"I, um, so I'm kinda, you know, just a little bit, um...pregnant?" Harley stutters out. 

"I’m sorry, what?” Ivy whispers. She couldn’t have heard right, could she? She must have something stuck in her ears to have heard what she thinks she just did. She knew the mechanics of how it happened, and she knew Joker was more than capable of rising to the occasion (she’d wanted to throw up each time Harley told her about something _amazing_ Joker happened to do with his fingers or his tongue, after all), but she’d thought the man was sterile. The caustic vat of _acid_ should have taken care of any little seeds that might have wanted to germinate. Maybe Harley had been sleeping around? The way she’d touched Dicky would suggest an intimate relationship. Perhaps it was his? “You’re sure?” she questions as she pulls back into the street, knowing the answer even before she asks.

Harley nods mutely, and Ivy is happy she doesn’t have to listen to the words again. She may love Harley, more than the other woman would ever know, but she didn’t know how to handle this. But she'd _have_ to handle this…somehow.

"I'm taking it he didn't react well, then?" she murmurs as she finally pulls into the little hidden parking spot behind her current hideout. 

"Oh, ya know, just reverting to his old pre-me Joker self, trying to hide from his feelings, sleeping with other women in a pathetic ploy to drive me away. You know, the normal!" she finishes in a forced version of her normal perky voice. Ivy cringes at the entirety of that sentence as she puts the car in park and gets out, needing a moment to contemplate the best way to respond. 

"Honey, you know it's not okay that he cheats on you, right? You deserve so much more than that. You deserve someone who loves you unconditionally, who would do anything for you, and who would be elated that you're carrying their demon spawn!" Tugging on a lock of Harley’s hair playfully, Ivy smiles at her, trying for a bit of levity. Something she says backfires spectacularly, though, causing Harley's eyes to immediately tear up as she throws herself bodily at Ivy. Thankfully the plants are able to catch them, propping Ivy up before they can both topple over to the hard concrete. Ivy runs a hand up and down Harley's back, making soothing noises as the plants propel them across the compound and into the main living area. 

xxxxxx

Harley _knows_ Joker loves her...would do anything for her. It’s just that he ran scared on occasion because he didn’t understand emotions. He tried to backtrack to BHQ, his Before Harley Quinn time, because it was easier. Her brain _knew_ that. Didn’t make her heart hurt any less, unfortunately. There was a small huge part of her that still worried she wasn’t good enough, would never be good enough, to be with him. Worried that Guy had been right when he told her that she was nothing more than a hole to stick something into and would never be good for anything else, no matter how smart she was. But Joker had shown her that that _wasn’t_ the case. That she was so much more than a warm body. He valued her mind just as much as he valued her body, if not more so. She was the other half of his soul, she _knew_ that, and she knew that _he_ knew that. It was just that her heart didn’t understand that right now, and it was hurt. He’d done what he’d done because he _knew_ it would hurt her, would hearken back to her worst fears.

Disentangling herself from Ivy, she goes to the small kitchen and squeals in happiness as she sees the huge pint of Cherry Garcia sitting there waiting for her in Ivy’s freezer. When she looks over at her best friend, Ivy smiles sheepishly. _Not_ the vegan ice cream Ivy usually made her eat, but real creamy cherry goodness with its glorious chunks of cherries and chocolate! Oh, Ivy was the _best_! Skipping over to her favorite comfy chair with the ice cream and spoon, she plops down and buries her sorrows in the pint of ice cream. She chooses to live for the now, rather than the past. As she feels her eyes drooping, she thinks that to dwell and let sadness overtake her would be bad for the baby. She remembered reading that somewhere once. 


	6. Life Could be a Dream

_Why_ did they call it _morning_ sickness if it wasn’t always localized to the _morning_?! It would often hit her the worst when Ivy was making food - which happened _twice a day_ , at the very least! She’d had to start leaving the living quarters to go play among the plants in the laboratory section when Ivy wanted food. Harley just couldn’t take the smells. She’d read that it should start calming down around the twelfth week, but as they _at_ that benchmark (to her best guestimation at least) with no abatement to the symptoms, Harley was beginning to suspect that the website had been lying to be cruel.

A few of the times she’d been down playing with the plants, she could swear she heard J’s voice whisper her name, thick with longing. Once, she’d heard it shouted as if he’d startled awake from a nightmare. She’d turn, but there would only be the plants. She wasn’t sure if it was the plants or her own imagination, but she lived for each time it happened. She’d even whispered his name back to the plants once, just in case they were trying to send messages back and forth. Harley was fairly certain this pregnancy was making her even crazier than she’d been previously, but she’d take it if she got to hear Joker’s voice on occasion. She knew she was supposed to be mad at him, and she was, but she still missed him. And no amount of anger would likely ever change that.

Stroking one of the rose bushes between its thorns, she whispers to the plant, “Will you take secret messages?” She really was cracking up if she was talking to the plants, expecting them to do anything that went against Ivy’s wishes.

But suddenly, the thing has wrapped itself around her wrist, pulling her to her knees, and it feels like she’s falling. She’s Alice, going down the Rabbit Hole in complete darkness, freefalling to who knew where. Almost as soon as it’s begun, it ends, and she’s back in the laboratory, surrounded by the plants. She tries to wrench her wrist free from the vicious little rosebush vine and is just turning around to scream for Ivy when she sees a pair of ridiculously patterned socks peeking out from behind another planter. She’d know those socks anywhere, and her heart does a little flutter in her chest, letting her know that her gut instinct is correct. She crawls towards those feet, keeping her arm behind her, trying to maneuver as best she can with a vine wrapped around her wrist. She whispers his name, praying that he’s real and not just a figment of her desperate imagination, when she notices a similar vine to hers wrapped around his ankle.

“Please be real, please be real, please be real,” she chants as she reaches a hand out to wrap around the ankle not surrounded by the vine and has to stifle her sob of relief at finding him corporeal. She rubs her hand up and down that gloriously real ankle, causing Joker to quickly come to full wakefulness and sit up. He whispers her name as he looks at her incredulously, reaching to grab her face in both of his hands, running his thumbs along her cheekbones and jaw. 

"Is this real? Are _you_ real, my Harley-Darley?" He whispers against her lips, not giving her a chance to answer before he's attached his lips to hers. 

After a moment of stunned silence, she kisses him back with the same need, pregnancy symptoms forgotten in her desperation to devour the only thing that's tasted good in weeks. "I'm real, Puddin, I’m real," she tells him as she wraps her free hand in his hair, tears beginning to leak from her eyes. At the feel of her tears, he sits back, still running his thumbs across her cheekbones, now wiping the tears away. 

It only takes him a moment before that naked look of longing turns to horror as he finally looks around her and then looks back at her, whispering, "Harl, you can't be here. Strange is running the show!” It’s then that she finally notices the Arkham issue sweatpants and naked chest, rather than his normal slacks or batman sweats.

“Baby, I’m not there, I’m with Ivy, I’m safe...we’re safe,” she murmurs, trying to soothe the wild look in his eyes. He runs his hands through her hair and across her face, trying to reassure himself that she was really with him in this moment, and it makes her wonder what Strange had been doing to him and how long he’d been in Arkham. He looked a bit thinner than he had when she’d left, thick shadows under his eyes, making him look as exhausted as she’d ever seen him.

The vine around her wrist loosens a small amount as if sensing her need to be closer to him, and she takes the opportunity to climb into his lap. She runs her nose up his carotid artery and sighs happily, her free hand running through his hair and along his shoulders, needing to touch him everywhere but being limited by the one hand. 

“You’re safe? You and the baby?” he murmurs against her jawline as his hands travel to her waist, clearly needing to reassure himself even as she nods.

He moans her name into her neck, and it’s in that moment that she can feel the blackness creeping back towards her. “Nonononono, please no,” she moans against his neck and tries wrapping her hand tighter around his shoulders, attempting to keep him with her.

“Harley?” he whispers, clearly not understanding what the blackness closing in means. But brilliant man that he is, he quickly figures it out, and his hands tighten around her, trying to keep her with him. As she plummets into nothingness again, she hears his enraged scream follow her back down the Rabbit Hole, echoed by her own anguished cry.

She wakes curled up on the floor next to the rosebush planter, Ivy pushing her hair out of her face, and she’s confused for a moment. Had it been a dream, or had Joker really been here? How could he have been here, though, if he was no longer in sight? 

“The rosebush that attached itself to you, it’s a new creation,” Ivy tells her, biting her lip, clearly needing no prompting from Harley to explain. “It...it’s supposed to create shared dreams, hallucinations, whatever you want to call them. But it hasn’t been working. I’m so sorry Harley, I never would have left it down here if I thought it would attack. The plants _know_ not to attack you.” 

“I think...I think I asked it to,” Harley whispers, playing with the small pricks in her skin where the vine had been attached to her wrist as she sits up. “I think it’s been listening to me for a while now. I’ve been...I’ve heard Joker’s voice a few times while down here, and I think your brilliant little rosebush was trying to keep us connected.”

“Harley, honey, you really need to separate yourself from the clown. I know you’ve got part of him growing inside of you, but you still need to separate from him. He’s abusive, and it’s unhealthy. I want to see you happy. It’s better for the baby, too.”

“Ivy, I love you, I do, but this is the first time I haven’t felt nauseous in _days_ , and it’s because my body and my brain both agree that we need him. I know you don’t see it, but he _loves_ me, and I love him. He backtracked, yes, and he’s got some epic makeup to do, but I _need_ him. You should have seen him, Ivy, he was _terrified_ for the baby and me when he thought we were in Arkham.” She knows her friend doesn’t understand and likely never will, but it ultimately didn’t matter what other people thought. Joker was hers, and she was Joker's. It may be unhealthy to some, but they were part of a whole, they belonged together. 

Grabbing onto her shoulders, Ivy shakes her slightly, “Harley! He had two women in _your bed_! How is that okay?! How can you forgive that?!”

Harley shrugs, not knowing how to explain. She loved him. It was that simple. He had some epic apologizing to do when she got him home, and she looked forward to burning everything the other women had touched, but she loved him with every fiber of her being. He belonged to her in a way that she could never explain to Ivy. Hell, even the _plants_ understood their connection enough to bring them together. If that didn’t say something about the universe believing they belonged together, Harley didn’t know what would!


	7. There’s No Place Like Home

It had been an excruciatingly long month since she’d seen Joker in the shared dream, and she was _ready_ to have him home. It had taken almost the full month to get home from Ivy’s, burn every piece of furniture that had the stench of the other women, replace it, and map out a plan that would get Joker out from under Strange’s claws with little fuss. She’d had to constantly overrule Panda Man and Johnny in their desperate need for explosives and high-powered guns, but she’d finally been able to convince them of the need to do this stealthily. Strange was likely to let it slide if they took Joker quickly without damaging his facility and didn’t make him look bad, and it would take longer for the Bad Bat to figure out that Joker was no longer in Arkham. She had been excluded from the execution of the plot itself, which had incensed her to no end until Johnny had made Stacy come and explain it to her. 

“Honey, you’re already massive, and you’re only at sixteen weeks! And you’re still randomly nauseous. There’s no way you could be stealthy the way the guys need to be. You’d...you’d only slow them down,” Stacy had told her, taking one of Harley’s hands in hers, trying to soften the sting of the words. _Was_ she massive already? Would J notice? Would he reject her all over again? Was she not good enough for him in this form? She must have uttered some of what she was thinking because, before she can stop the movement, Stacy has her in a motherly hug, Harley’s head pressed practically on top of Stacy’s chest, Stacy’s hands running through Harley’s wavy hair in soothing motions. “If he’s anything like Johnny was, he’s scared at the very thought at first, runs away for a bit, and then comes back with the realization that there’s more to love and grovels to get back on your good side. Not sure I can see J groveling, but before you came along, we couldn’t see him loving anyone else other than the mirror either, so I suppose you never know!” Stacy shrugs, giving Harley a small smile.

Finally nodding, she’d waved the boys out the door and sat on the stairs up to their living quarters, readying for the long wait. Stacy coaxed her up to the penthouse after the first half-hour under the guise of needing to check on the baby, and Harley had acquiesced. Honestly, her ass had hurt sitting on the hard stairs, and her back had begun aching, so she was happy for the excuse to go upstairs and sit on the couch. When Stacy finally had her sitting down, she brought out the little portable Doppler she’d brought just for this occasion and began to listen to the heartbeat through the tiny speaker. 

“Harley, honey, when was the last time you had a check-up?” Stacy whispered, looking at Harley with wide eyes. Harley couldn’t fathom the meaning of the look on Stacy’s face at the sound of the heartbeat. They could hear the quick beating of the baby’s heart through the little speaker, so Harley knew it wasn’t that the baby was dead. Could Stacy tell that something else was wrong just by the sound of the heartbeat?

Biting her lip, she admits that she hadn’t exactly had a check-up as of yet, not having time, what with being with Ivy and then plotting a break-out of Arkham. But she’d been taking vitamins! And Ivy had given her something to help the baby’s growth along since both women had figured that Harley’s uterus was not an overly happy place, what with the acid dip and all. She continues chewing on her lip as Stacy quickly types out a text to one of her “night assistants” to bring her something, and Harley is about ready to scream when Stacy finally looks up at her. 

“The baby’s heart is a little fast for my liking, but...I think that may be because you’ve got more than one bun in your oven?” Stacy murmurs. “I’m having one of my night nurses bring in a portable ultrasound machine that we can keep here. The boys will be gone for a while yet since they have to wait for the shift change at Arkham, so it’ll give us time to check under the hood and make sure that everything is hunky-dory and see if I’m right.”

Harley can hear Stacy murmuring to a slip of a girl downstairs, telling her that one of the henchie’s girls got in over their head and she needed to check everything out. Harley knew they were keeping the number of people who knew she was pregnant as low as possible, but there was still a part of her that cringed at having to hide. She was supposed to be _done_ hiding her true self now that she was with Joker! She knew she was a liability to Joker normally (or at least that’s the way his enemies saw her), but she was even more so if she was carrying his child. What would the likes of Zsasz do to her if they knew? Or Batman? She can’t help the shudder that rolls up her body at the thought of someone using her to get to the man she loved. 

Harley is staring down at her abdomen, rubbing her hands along it and wondering what’s going on in there when Stacy finally comes back with the little machine and makes her lay down flat. 

“I don’t want to know the sex until it’s with Joker,” she tells Stacy as the other woman stares at the little black and white screen.

“Harley, look at the screen,” Stacy whispers when Harley turns her eyes away. “I promise, I won’t let you know what everything means, but look at your babies.”

Biting her lip, Harley stares at the little screen as Stacy moves the small wand this way and that, trying to get a clear picture. Stacy points out the two distinct heads and their tiny bodies as the two women listen to the twins’ rapid heartbeats in awe. Her body had done this, had created life. She and Joker had created _life_. 

By the time they hear the sounds of movement coming from the rest of the compound, signaling the raiding party’s return, both women have dried their eyes and look as if they weren’t both sitting in the penthouse’s living room doing absolutely nothing, too worried about the results of this mission. Harley stands and paces back and forth across the room, needing to walk off the worry that seems to be mounting at seeing Joker for the first time in person since she walked out almost twelve weeks ago. Maybe it _had_ been a dream a month ago, and he’d still want her gone just as badly? She’s just turning to make another circle of the room when the door bursts open, and he’s standing there, whispering her name. Harley can see Johnny looming behind Joker and hears Stacy sob at the sight of her clearly unharmed husband. 

Joker just stands in the doorway, and Harley has to fight her body’s need to move towards him. He’s emaciated, almost skeletal. His cheekbones stand out prominently, almost giving him a bruised look, and she can count each of his ribs, which dip dramatically into his abdomen and down to his prominent hip bones. His tattoos stand out almost grotesquely against his deathly white skin, the huge smile across his stomach mocking her as tears well up in her eyes.

“Harley?” he whispers again, clearly not believing his eyes as he takes a step into the room and drops down to his knees, putting his head in his hands. 

“He wouldn’t talk on the way back, Miss Quinn,” Johnny tells her as Stacy walks toward her husband and around Joker’s hunched form. Harley nods as the two leave the room and quietly close the door, knowing that no one else needs to see what comes next.

xxxxxx

He can hear Harley lower herself in front of him, but he just sits there with his head in his hands, not knowing how to deal with her being in front of him for the first time in months. He opens his fingers enough to see her hands balled on her knees, her knuckles almost white with her need to touch him, and he finally looks up at her. His fearless Harlequin looks back at him without flinching, and he has no idea how to read the look in her eyes. Was she glad to see him? Was she horrified? Terrified? Had the visit from her a month ago been real, or had that all been in his mind? The desperate need of a mind starved of conversation, love, and nutrients? He reaches a hand out slowly, unsure of his welcome, and when she doesn’t back away or flinch, he lets his knobby fingers lightly run across her cheekbones, down to her jaw, finally coming to rest against her neck, her heart vein pounding against his palm. It felt like that vein was trying to tell him something, but it had been so long since he’d seen her, he was unsure of the message. Was it telegraphing her fear or her elation?

It’s as if his touch breaks some kind of spell, though, and she throws herself at him, sobbing his name, her hands running across his face and his startlingly prominent collar bones, clearly needing to feel that he’s alive and truly there in front of her. He struggles to keep them propped up, not having the muscle mass he’s used to, but unwilling to stop her desperate exploration. He’s starved for her touch and is thanking whatever deity or deities are out there that she’s here, in front of him, alive. Whatever Strange had been doing to him, he’d seen a constant running reel of Harley dead or dying in front of him, always unable to stop it. Sometimes it was the thing in her stomach that had killed her, but more often, it was a fatal car accident or his own hand that had done the deed. He’d tried to stop eating the food that Strange had delivered, hoping it would stop the images, but it never did. Maybe Strange had been dosing him with Crane’s fear toxin? Whatever it had been, she’d kept dying, and he’d kept killing her, and she’d kept looking at him with those sad eyes that told him it was all his fault.

He may not have the energy for much, but he grabs her face, bringing it to his as he captures her lips, needing to feel the warmth and softness pressed against him. She makes a noise half-way between a sob and moan as he runs his tongue against hers, and her hands go reflexively to his hair, only to find the shaved stubble that’s there. She growls at the loss, causing a smile to spread across his face as he devours her mouth. He lets his hands roam down across her body slowly, noting each change until he finally allows them to rest against the edges of her enlarged stomach, rubbing little circles into her belly.

She only gives him a moment before she sits back on her heels and looks at him, letting her hands slide down to his forearms. “Let’s get you somewhere comfy and get an IV bag of fluids hooked up to you, hmm, Puddin?”

He smiles ruefully at her and nods, knowing this is her way of saying he was worryingly thin without saying the words and damaging his fragile ego. She stands and helps him up, which _does_ rather bruise his ego a bit that the pregnant woman has to help him up, but he shrugs it off as she leads him to their bed, which looks different, and lays down. As if noticing the look of confusion he gives to their bed, she smiles viciously as she tells him that she burnt the old one as she climbs in next to him. Vicious wonderful creature, his Harley Quinn.

Stacy comes in moments later with her doctor’s bag and a bag of fluids already in her hand and quickly hooks him up after taking vitals and writing them down in a little notebook. She leaves almost as swiftly as she comes, and he’s left with a quiet Harley in a bed that has almost too much give after months on a shitty Arkham pallet. He maneuvers as best he can with a needle in his flesh, but he’s able to move Harley so that she’s resting her face in the crook of his neck, his arm warped around her shoulders, holding her to him. She wraps her arm around him and snuggles in, and before he realizes it, she’s out like a light. He runs his fingers through her riotous curls, burying his nose in her hair and just breathing in her scent as he lets himself drift off into a sound sleep for the first time since this whole thing began.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please let me know what you thought - kudos and comments go a long way!
> 
> Any kind of feedback is appreciated, even if it's not great! You can always send me an email as well if you're nervous about posting here!


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